Scientific research about child centered spirituality increases

I appreciate the man in Zeitlarn, Germany who wrote me earlier this month to tell me about a book summarizing the findings of an increasing number of studies in child psychology that support child-centered spirituality. One description in the book states:

“Scientific experiments conducted with children across the globe illustrate the ways human beings develop complex beliefs about God’s omniscience, the afterlife, and the immortality of deities. How the developing brain grapples with these and other questions leads children, across cultures, to naturally develop a belief in a divine power of remarkably consistent traits.”

Dr. Justin Barrett, in his book Born Believers: The Science of Children’s Religious Beliefs, offers a compelling argument for the human instinct for religion. His research (and that of other scientists), supported by The John Templeton Foundation, shows how the science of childhood religiosity reveals across humanity a “natural religion,” the organization of the beliefs that humans gravitate to organically, and how it underlies all of the world’s major religions, uniting them under one common source.

Since my blog is in no way a scientific study, all the more reason to pass along scientific research to readers who may be interested. This blog is closer to a meditation on the ways in which infancy and childhood can be seen through a spiritual lens so that adults continue to address all the needs–physical, mental, emotional and spiritual–of the children they love.